The authors center on a historical period to
present a study of bibliographical character, on which basis they analyze education
in Brazil by focusing specifically on the proposal for educational reform made
by the Marquis of Pombal. Along the analysis they point to the consequences
of the Pombaline reform to Brazilian and Portuguese education, whose social
context included, on the one hand, Absolutist ideas, and on the other, the Enlightenment
ideas that inspired Pombal. The studies concentrate on Pombal's period in government,
namely when he, as Ministry of the Treasure of King José I, tried to
carry out reforms in all areas of the Portuguese society, affecting Brazil as
a colony, in an attempt to give it unity. The critical analysis converges to
the conclusion that the Pombaline reform was disastrous for Brazilian education
and, to a certain extent, also to the Portuguese education system. This assertion
is based on the following issue: the destruction of the time-honored, consolidated
 albeit questionable from social, historical, and scientific viewpoints
 educational organization of the Jesuit priests, without the implementation
of a new educational proposal capable of coping with societal needs. Therefore,
the criticism that can be formulated here, and that is valid for the current
moment of our own society, relates to the frequent discontinuities of the educational
policies. However, it must be emphasized that the substitution of the ecclesiastical
methodology of the Jesuits by the pedagogical thinking of the public, lay school
signals the arrival, in that society, of the spirit of Modernity.

Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo,
Count of Oeiras, better known as the Marquis of Pombal, was born on 13th May
1699. He belonged to a family of the lower nobility, little known and unrelated
to the Portuguese royalty. During a brief period of time, he was with the Army,
and was member of the Portuguese Academy of History. He initiated in public
life only after 1738, when he was assigned business delegate in London.

According to Avellar (1983), his time in London
produced in him an aversion for the English and "[ ] their methods
of economic domination" (p. 9). Such dislike can be seen in his anti-British
measures that unrelentingly aimed at freeing the Portuguese trade from the English
yoke. The English envoy in Lisbon actually remarked that "this man has
been doing us great harm" (p. 9). During his long stay in the English capital,
the Marquis of Pombal did not even learn the English language, for since the
1648 Westphalia Treat French was regarded as the diplomatic language.

The life of the Marquis of Pombal can be divided
into four main stages. The first refers to his personal interests, that is,
is the phase of the citizen Sebastião José de Carvalho, and goes
from 1699 to 1738. During this time, the citizen is dedicated exclusively to
the pursuits of the small nobleman. This period ends with his frustrated attempt
to join the Treasure Council of King João V. The second phase is the
diplomatic one, going from 1738 to 1749, during which he holds diplomatic posts
in London and Vienna. The third phase corresponds to his period in government,
and becomes the most important stage of his life, for during the reign of D.
José I1, which went
from 1750 to 1777, he ended up running the businesses of the country. His last
stage refers to his period in exile, ranging from the death of D. José
I in 1777 to his own death in 1782.

The Marquis of Pombal, following Rêgo (1984)
and Serrão (1982), was strongly influenced in his political formation
by his diplomatic stay in Vienna (1745-1749), since it can be

[ ] said that it was in this capital city
of the human spirit that the Portuguese minister, in contact with the world
of politics and diplomacy, drank from the great principles of the Despotic
Enlightenment that he would apply upon his return to his country. It was equally
from that period that, according to Maria Alcina Ribeiro Correia, he brought
the economic and cultural ideas that constituted the mainstay of his government.
(SERRÃO, 1982, p. 22)

Pombal's formation was also influenced by the
English political economics, for he searched for a solution to the Portuguese
crisis in the English model. However, one of the reasons that he could not succeed
was the existence of a fundamental disagreement: the differences in the political
systems of the two countries. In Portugal there was Absolutism, whereas in England
the constituted system was parliamentary.

Upon assuming the post of Minister of the Treasury
of D. José I on 2nd August 1750, taking over from Azevedo Coutinho, Pombal
initiated reforms in every area of Portuguese society: political, administrative,
economic, cultural and educational. These reforms demanded a strong state control
and an efficient working of the administrative machine, and were carried out
mainly against the interests of the nobles and of the Company of Jesus, who
represented threats to the absolute power of the king.

The Company of Jesus, a religious order formed
by priests (known as Jesuits), was founded by Ignatius of Loyola in 1534. The
Jesuits became a powerful and efficient religious congregation mainly due to
their fundamental principles: search for human perfection through the word of
God and the will on men; absolute and unrestricted obedience to superiors; strict
and severe discipline; military-style hierarchy; recognition of the personal
aptitudes of its members. It experienced a large expansion during the first
decades following its creation, as observed in the growth of the number of its
members. In 1556 it had a thousand members; in 1606 that number had grown to
thirteen thousand. But the Jesuit order was not created only for educational
purposes, and it seems indeed likely that in the beginning those were not even
among its ends, since confession, preaching and catechization were its priorities.
The 'spiritual exercises' became the main resource, having enormous animist
and religious influence upon adults. However, education gradually took on a
more important role, perhaps even center stage, among its activities. The Company
of Jesus was founded right in the middle of the reaction movement of the Catholic
Church against the Protestant Reformation, and can be rightfully considered
as one of the main instruments of the Counter-Reformation. It had as objective
to arrest the huge Protestant surge of the time, and to that end it made use
of two strategies: the education of men and indigenous peoples, and the missionary
action, through which it tried to bring to the Catholic faith the peoples of
the regions that were being colonized.

Teixeira Soares (1961) presents as the principal
problems of the administration of D. João I2,
who preceded D. José I, that came to be tackled by the Marquis of Pombal:
the attachment to routine, avoiding the reforms that were needed and useful
to the working of the administrative structure of the State, especially with
respect to the functioning of the Treasury and the overseas administration;
the lack of interest for public instruction, which for the Portuguese Crown
was a privilege of nobles and bourgeoisie; the obscurantism that plagued all
levels of the government, making difficult the reforms needed.

Analyzing the reforms carried out by the Marquis
of Pombal, Avellar reckons that Pombal displayed a profound knowledge of the
Portuguese reality, the reason why he intended to implement a cultural, political
and economic reformulation of the Portuguese society. Thus,

[ ] it is the recognition that the failure
of aspects of his administration was due to a factor upon which the Minister
could not exert safe control. Even so, it cannot be said that he neglected
the national conscience, for he freed the administration from religious presence,
and made as pillars of his economic plan the ideas of ridding the commerce
from British regulation, and the need to protect and develop the national
industry; and of his educational program the indispensability of returning
to lower and higher studies, and encouraging the professional education (classes
in commerce and artillery), as well as, of his social agenda, to free the
Blacks in the realm and the Indians overseas, saving with the eradication
of the Jesuit communal administration in the State of Maranhão the
linguistic unity of Brazil, as several authors have already proclaimed. (1983,
p. 12)

In order to fulfill one of his objectives, that
of transforming the Portuguese nation, the Marquis of Pombal would first need
to strengthen the State and the king's power. This would be possible with the
weakening of the power and prestige of the aristocracy and of the clergy, which
traditionally limited the royal power. So, as Ribeiro (1998, p. 30) puts it,
the then minister "guided himself towards recovering the economy through
the concentration of power in the king's hands, and modernizing the Portuguese
culture".

Upon assuming the post of Minister, the Marquis
of Pombal formulated and implemented administrative reforms with the aim of
making the administrative machine of the State more agile and efficient, and
also of increasing State revenue. Still in the field of administrative and economic
reforms, he intended with those measures to give a boost to national economy
and to encourage the development of industries and trade companies  there
appeared silk and wool textile industries; of hats, rugs, foundries, earthenware,
dairy products, glass, soap, and many others. However, his attempts at consolidating
a strong industrial base, fit to compete internally and externally, did not
go very far, because many industries were short-lived as a result of weak internal
demand, which was directed towards English-made products of better quality than
the Portuguese. It should still be mentioned that Pombal neglected agriculture
policy, paying little attention to its problems.

The reforms of the Marquis of Pombal also affected
the Brazilian colony by targeting the reformulation of public services, chiefly
through the fight against tax evasion. He was concerned with giving some unity,
some sense of whole to the Brazilian colony. It was during his period in government
that the city of Rio de Janeiro experienced an enormous development, with emphasis
to its port and to the increase in population. The focus of the present study
is, however, on the educational acts of his administration.

The Marquis of Pombal and the educational
reforms

In the 15th century the command of the Portuguese
public teaching shifts from the University of Coimbra to the Company of Jesus,
which takes control over public schooling in Portugal and, later on, in Brazil.
Almost two centuries of dominion of the Jesuit educational method ended in the
18th century with the Pombal Reforms, when schooling becomes a responsibility
of the Portuguese Crown.

According to Falcon (1993), the analysis of historians
and researchers of the life and work of the Marquis of Pombal can be divided
into six distinct moments: in the first, we find his contemporaries; in the
second, there appear the admirers and immediate critics of his work; in the
third we find the liberals and the myth of Pombaline liberalism; in the fourth
are the conservatives and the myth of Pombaline tyranny; in the fifth are the
studies and investigations presented by researchers and historians during the
first half of the 20th century; in the sixth and last moment, started in 1945,
we find the more recent analyses.

[ ] still today, the Pombaline decrees
and provisions are examined as if there was no other way but the alternative
that was then presented: Jesuitism or Anti-Jesuitism. In this alternative
the Jesuits represent for the historians all that is anti-modern, and Pombal
and his men, the authentic anticipation of the modern aspirations. Now, one
must recognize that the terms of such alternative constitute one of the most
serious impediments to a fair understanding of one of the most lucid moments
in Portuguese history. (CARVALHO, 1978, p. 29)

During Pombal's administration there is an attempt
to blame the Company of Jesus for every trouble of the education in the metropolis
and in the colony, thereby making the Jesuits responsible for the cultural and
educational decadence of the Portuguese society.

Carvalho (1978) draws attention to the fact that
this process, denominated Anti-Jesuitism, was not exclusive to Portugal, representing
an attitude observed in several European countries. In this sense, the Jesuits
represented an obstacle and a source of resistance to the efforts of implementing
the new philosophy of the Enlightenment that was rapidly spreading throughout
Europe.

Serrão (1982) and Almeida (2000) explain
that Pombal's hatred of the Jesuits was recorded in official documents of the
time. In this respect, Carvalho says that

[ ] the widely acknowledged hatred of
the Marquis of Pombal towards the Company of Jesus was not due to the opinioned
prejudices of a systematic stance previously defined. Various and complex
factors of social, political and ideological nature influenced decisively
in the evolution of an issue that still today elicits the passion and clouds
the vision of the most enlightened of spirits. In the brevity of this form
of national political ideal  the preservation of the Christian union
and of the civil society  is subsumed a whole philosophy with clearly
defined objectives, in a certain way responsible, incidentally, both by the
virtues and by the vices of the dominating despotism. (1978, p. 32)

Such anti-Jesuitic spirit is ultimately expressed
in the attribution to the Company of Jesus of all ailments of the education
in the metropolis and in the Brazilian colony, as well as of the cultural and
educational decadence of the Portuguese society.

The most important measures implemented by the
Marquis, through the Decree of 28th June 1759 were: total dissolution of the
organization of Jesuit education and of its teaching methodology, both in Brazil
and in Portugal; institution of classes of Latin grammar, of Greek and rhetoric;
creation of the post of 'director of studies'  it was intended for this
post to represent a body of administrative guidance and teaching overseeing;
introduction of the Aulas Régias  isolated classes that
replaced the secondary course in humanities created by the Jesuits; institution
of an exam for the selection of teachers for the Aulas Régias;
approval and institution of commerce classes.

Inspired by the ideals of the Enlightenment,
Pombal carries out a profound educational reform, at least formally. The ecclesiastical
methodology of the Jesuits is replaced by the pedagogical thinking of the public
and lay school. It is the appearance of the modern spirit that

[ ] representing the watershed between
the Jesuit pedagogy and the new orientation of the modelers of the Pombaline
statutes of 1772, already gives clear indication of the epoch that will start
in the 19th century, in which these two tendencies will vie each
other. Instead of a single teaching system, the duality of schools, some lay,
others confessional, all guided, however, by the same principles; instead
of a teaching purely literary, classical, the development of the scientific
teaching that slowly begins its development alongside the literary education,
still predominating in every school; instead of the exclusive teaching of
Latin and Portuguese, the progressive advance of the living languages and
modern literatures (French and English); and, finally, the ramification of
tendencies that, if not constituting a rupture of the unity of thought, open
the way to the first clashes between the old ideas, embodied in the Jesuit
teaching, and the new current of pedagogical thinking influenced by the ideas
of the French Encyclopedists, victorious after 1789, on the school work of
the Revolution (AZEVEDO, 1976, p. 56-57)

The introduction of the ideals of the Enlightenment3
in the sciences, and in particular in education, follows the social conditions
of the time. Boto analyzes that since the 18th century there is

[ ] an intensification of the pedagogical
thinking and of the preoccupation with an educative attitude. To some philosophers
and thinkers of the French movement, Man is an integral result of the educative
process to which he submitted. Education thereby acquires a totalizing and
prophetic perspective, since through it the necessary social reforms could
take place via the sign of the pedagogically reformed Man. (1996, p. 21)

To the Enlightenment ideal, the new society requires
a new Man, which can only be formed through education. Thus, despite the usefulness
of the Jesuit teaching during the initial period of the colonization process
of Brazil, it can no longer answer to the interests of the emerging Modern States.
There appears, consequently, the idea of a public education under the control
of the Modern States. And so, from this historic moment on, the Jesuit teaching
becomes ineffective as a response to the demands of a society in transformation.

For the discourse of the Enlightenment and, more
specifically, to that of the Marquis of Pombal, education and the right are
extremely important because both are at the center of this thinking.

It is important to consider that the pedagogical
renovation intended by the Marquis of Pombal is not exclusive to his government,
for since the reign of D. João V up to that of D. Maria I, elements of
the Enlightenment movement can be found, as observed by Serrão (1982),
Carvalho (1978), Holanda (1993) and Ribeiro (1998).

[ ] the Pombaline reforms of public teaching
constitute a highly significant expression of the Portuguese Enlightenment.
In them one finds materialized a pedagogical program that, on the one hand,
represents the reflection of the ideas that stirred the European mind and,
on the other hand, translates in the conditions of the peninsular life motivations,
preoccupations and problems typically Portuguese. (CARVALHO, 1978, p. 25)

To Ribeiro it is clear that

[ ] The 'Pombaline reforms' aimed at transforming
Portugal into a capitalist metropolis, in the image of what England had been
for more than a century. They aimed also at provoking changes in Brazil, with
the purpose of adapting it, as a colony, to the new order intended in Portugal.
(1998, p. 35)

One sees, then, a new social order, a new model
of man, a new society based on the values of the pre-capitalist production system.

When proposing the educational reforms 
through the approval of decrees creating several schools and reforming several
existing ones  the Marquis of Pombal was concerned mainly with making
use of public teaching as an ideological instrument and, therefore, with the
intent of dominating and diminishing the ignorance that permeated society, a
condition incompatible and irreconcilable with the ideas of the Enlightenment
(SANTOS, 1982).

Almeida (2000) and Ribeiro (1998) concur that
the biggest obstacle to fulfilling these objectives was the lack of people prepared
to teach at the elementary and primary levels, that is, there was a great shortage,
both at the metropolis and in the colony, of teachers apt to the function of
teaching.

In view of this context, it can be said that
Pombal, by pushing the Jesuits away and officially taking over the public instruction,
did not just intend to reform the system and educational methods, but wanted
to put them at the service of the political interests of the State. According
to Haidar, there was an attempt

[ ] to create a school useful to the ends
of the State and, in this sense, instead of proposing a policy of intense
and extensive diffusion of the school work, Pombal's men intended to organize
a school that, prior to serving the interests of faith, served the imperatives
of the Crown. (1973, p. 38)

By the Decree of April 5th 1771, Pombal transfers
the administration and direction of teaching to the Royal Census Office (Real
Mesa Censória), a body created in April 1768, with which he intended
to attain the emancipation from the absolute control of the Jesuits over the
teaching, thereby handing it to the State. Following this act, seventeen literacy
classes were created in Brazil; and a monetary fund  denominated literary
subvention  was established for the maintenance of the reformed studies.
One of the implications of the dismantling of the Jesuitic educational organization
and of the failure to implement a formal and effective educational project was
the delay to institute in the Brazilian colony the schools with graduated and
systematized courses (1776).

Almeida (2000) highlights an important issue
for the understanding of public instruction in the Brazilian colony: the attempt
of the Portuguese Crown and of the colonial government to curb the development
of public instruction for the Brazilian population. Such attitude was motivated
by the intention to inhibit the expansion of the nationalist spirit that was
beginning to emerge amongst the population.

It is therefore possible to observe, from the
start, the presence of a distinguishing feature of Brazilian education 
'the destruction and substitution of old educational proposals in favor of newer
proposals'. It can thus be seen that, generally speaking, there is no continuity
of the educational proposals implemented in Brazil. The expulsion of the Jesuits
and the total destruction of their educational project can be regarded as the
birth of this trait so deeply rooted in Brazilian education.

According to Holanda, with the expulsion of the
Jesuits,

[ ] public instruction in Portugal and
in the colonies was severely hit. The schools maintained by the Company of
Jesus, which were the main centers of teaching, disappeared. There was great
urgency, therefore, to adopt measures to at least reduce the inconvenient
of the situation brought about by the drastic administrative steps taken by
Sebastião de Carvalho e Melo. The field had, however, already been
prepared for the implementation of new pedagogical ideas by the fortuitous
and isolated efforts of a few men of knowledge and thinking, amongst which
were the unique Luís Antônio Verney and the priests of the Congregation
of the Oratory of São Felipe Néri. (1989, p. 80-81)

It can be seen that the intention and efforts
to exempt the Government from its responsibility through the use of ploys, projects
and taxes to finance education is not new, and not exclusive to contemporary
governments. Also, it can be observed already at that time two types of schools
(one for the children of nobles and bourgeoisie, and another for less well-off
social groups), and of educational policies that privileged private education
with the support of the State.

To Teixeira Soares, more important that

[ ] than the reform and modernization
of the University of Coimbra was the 6th November 1772 Decree instituting
the popular teaching to be given at public schools. Pombal was not satisfied
with just approving the law. He immediately moved on to setup the schools,
which should total 479 units. The law had decreed that the popular teaching
could also be carried out by private institutions which, to such purpose,
would be supported by the State in pre-selecting the following subjects: orthography,
grammar, arithmetic, Christian doctrine, and social and civic education ('civility').
The secondary teaching would emphasize Latin, Greek, and French. At the same
time that popular teaching was being taken care of, he founded the 'College
of Nobles', a seminar dedicated to the education of the children of aristocracy;
and to keep the social and educational balance, he also founded the College
of Mafra, dedicated to the education of common people, with a syllabus identical
to the one reserved for the sons of nobles. [ ] The prime minister created
a special tax to maintain and expand the schools founded (Law of 10th November
1772). (1961, p. 218)

Minister Pombal intended to promote the replacement
of the traditional pedagogical methods instituted by the Company of Jesus for
a new educational methodology, fitting to the reality and historical moment.
He, therefore, wished that Portuguese schools were able to follow the transformations
occurring at the time.

With this decree, the Marquis of Pombal aimed
to promote the substitution of the traditional pedagogical methods instituted
by the Company of Jesus with a new pedagogical methodology, considered as modern,
and therefore aligned with the ideals of the Enlightenment.

Although recognizing the merits of Pombal's work
with respect to public instruction, Almeida (2000) points out that after the
expulsion of the Company of Jesus from Brazil, and the destruction of their
educational work, other religious orders tried to continue with the work initiated
by the Jesuit priests, without, however, much success. Besides, Almeida reckons
that the success of the Jesuit educational project was partly due to the skills
of the priests as teachers, because the order 'kept numerous schools run by
truly talented teachers'.

Carvalho (1978), Avellar (1983) and Ribeiro (1998)
all agree that the content of the Pombaline reform, under the ideas of its mentors
Luís Antonio Verney4,
Ribeiro Sanches5 and Antônio
Genovessi, considered to be modern thinkers, displays features of traditional,
that is, ecclesiastical teaching. Thus, there was not a complete rupture with
the Jesuit teaching, for the change that took place was more of the content
that of the educational method.

Falcon says that

[ ] after Verney, the Enlightened reformism,
supported by the juridical optimism that characterizes it, is the order of
the day. Secularization constitutes its dominating feature. The faith in progress,
the emphasis given to reason, and the belief in the almost magical power of
the 'Lights' complete the ideals. (1993, p. 364)

'O verdadeiro método de estudar'
[The true method of studying] by Luís Antonio Verney set out to oppose
the pedagogical method of the Jesuits. The work, which in fact was composed
of sixteen letters written in Rome between 1746 and 1747, presents an analysis
of the problems of the Portuguese teaching so far given according to the Jesuit
methodology; also, it gives guidance as to how to proceed to adapt it and conform
it to the new reality.

His pedagogical project is based on some of these
proposals, such as: the secularization of teaching; valuing the Portuguese language;
the role and importance of studying Latin through the Portuguese language (one
of the reasons for studying Latin was the possibility of simplifying and shortening
the duration of studies); the reduction in the number of years devoted to elementary
studies, aiming particularly at increasing the number of students in higher
education; presentation of a plan of studies for all levels of education, from
the fundamental (starting at the age of seven) up to the higher education levels;
disciplines contained in his pedagogical proposal are, in their majority, literary,
such as: Portuguese, Latin, Rhetoric, Poetry and Philosophy (Logic, Moral, Ethics,
Metaphysics and Theology), Law (Civil Law and Canonical Law), Medicine (Anatomy),
Greek, Hebrew, French, Italian, Anatomy, Physics (Arithmetic and Geometry);
the proposal of free and public schooling to all Portuguese population as a
way of reducing illiteracy in the Portuguese society.

Thus, he claims that public schools should be
opened in every neighborhood, so that no one would be out of them; recommends
a change of behavior of the teachers with respect to their pupils, aiming at
improving the teacher/pupil relationship; recommends that the university should
be open to the community, so that even those outside the academic sphere could
attend to classes; suggests the creation of colleges for the poor with the objective
of enabling them in the customs of the bourgeoisie and nobility; he also makes
considerations about the education of women. He regards as important that women
should go to school in order to acquire knowledge relevant to take care of the
home.

The importance of Verney's work, according to
the thinking of the time, can be seen in the analysis of Falcon:

[ ] it resides not so much in its "contents"
as in the spirit that accompanies it, and in the rupture it represents. [ ]
The spirit we refer to is that of the ironic, often satirical, criticism to
the existing teaching in Portugal, in all levels, both in its contents and
in its methods, a criticism that extends to the Portuguese culture as a whole.
It was, in short, an attempt to demonstrate that in any direction one looked,
Portugal was backward, lagging behind what was going on in the civilized centers.
(1993, p. 331)

According to Ribeiro (1998), this new organization
of the Portuguese teaching is considered as a step backward under the pedagogical
viewpoint, and as progress insofar as it demanded new methods and the adoption
of new books. It was during the reign of D. José I that a sharp development
of books as agents of culture could be observed.

It is important to recall that, formal proposals
notwithstanding, the Pombaline reforms never managed to be implemented, bringing
about a long period (from 1759 to 1808) of near disorganization and decadence
to the education in the colony. Thus, between

[ ] the Jesuit's expulsion in 1759 and
the transfer of the Portuguese Court to Brazil in 1808 a gap of almost half
a century was opened, a wide hiatus characterized by the disorganization and
decadence of the colonial teaching. No institutional organization came, in
fact, to replace the powerful homogeneity of the Jesuit system, established
all along the large landowners' coast, with ramifications across the forests
and highlands, and whose schools and seminaries represented, in the Colony,
the large centers of diffusion of culture. (AZEVEDO, 1976, p. 61)

Carvalho thus characterizes Luís Antonio
Verney:

[ ] none, however, as illustrious as Verney,
for the universality of the plan he conceived, and for the ambition with which
he sought, through his works, to realize the program envisaged practically
in his green years. It is in this sense that Luís Antonio Verney is
a pedagogue and, as a pedagogue, 'an Enlightened" insofar as the Enlightenment
is a way of thinking common to men who, in various attitudes of thought, seek
to turn culture into an instrument of progress and perfection of the societies
and of men. In Verney there is not just the program of a reform of the studies;
there is also the awareness of the need to unfold a pedagogical task, realizing
in the practical order the guidelines that the knowledge of Portuguese reality
and of the recent achievements of culture impose as preliminary goals of a
policy destined to truly 'illuminate' the Portuguese nation (1978, p. 61-62).

Final considerations

During the administration of the Marquis of Pombal
as Minister, all the malaises of education, in the metropolis and in the colony,
were attributed to the Company of Jesus. It is a prime example of the struggle
between the old the new models within a historical analysis.

The new, present in society, is inspired by the
ideals of the Enlightenment, and it is within this context that Pombal, as a
minister, sought to implement a profound educational reform, at least formally.
Among his objectives of transformation, some changes were anticipated. The ecclesiastical
methodology of the Jesuits was replaced by the pedagogical thinking of the public
and lay school; creation of positions such as that of director of studies, with
the tasks of guidance and supervision of teaching; introduction of aulas
régias, that is, isolated classes with the intent of replacing the
humanities course created by the Jesuits. All these proposals were a result
of the social conditions of the time, and with them Pombal intended to offer
to Portuguese schools the means to keep up with the changes of the epoch. In
this sense, his new educational proposals reflected and expressed the ideals
of the Enlightenment.

To Brazil, however, the consequences of the dismantling
of the educational organization of the Jesuits, and of the failure to implement
a new educational project were serious; only in 1776, seventeen years after
the expulsion of the Jesuits, schools with graduated and systematized courses
were set up.

The Pombaline teaching reform can be said to
have been disastrous to Brazilian education, and also, to a certain extent,
to education in Portugal, for it destroyed a consolidated educational organization
which had shown results, albeit arguable and liable to criticism, but did not
implement a reform that could guarantee a new educational system. Therefore,
the criticism that can be formulated along these lines is that of the destruction
of an educational proposal in favor of another, without the latter possessing
the actual conditions for its consolidation.

Lizete Shizue Bomura Maciel holds an MA
and a PhD in Education from the Pontifical Catholic University of São
Paulo (PUC/SP). She coordinates the Study and Research Group in Education, Prejudice
and Exclusion (UEM), and is a member of the Study and Research Group in Teacher
Education (UEM). She is a lecturer at the Graduate Program in Education of the
State University of Maringá (UEM). Alexandre Shigunov Neto graduated in Business Administration from the
State University of Maringá (UEM), and specialized in Business Economy
at the State University of Londrina. He holds an MA in Education from the Graduate
Program in Education of UEM, and is a PhD candidate at the Graduate Program
in Knowledge Engineering and Management (EGC) of the Federal University of Santa
Catarina (UFSC). 1. D. José I (1714-1777), son
and heir to D. João V, married D. Mariana Vitória, who gave him
four daughters (D. Maria I, D. Maria Ana, D. Maria Francisca Dorotéia
and D. Maria Francisca Benedita). He was greatly helped, and influenced, by
the Marquis of Pombal during his reign. 2. D. João I (1357-1433) was an
illigitimate son to D. Pedro and Teresa Lourenço. He ruled over Portugla
from 1385 until his death in 1433. To Serrão (1982), D. João I
was the greatest Portuguese king of the 15th century, and one of the greatest
of all history of Portugal. He became famous for his 'firmness in government
and political vision', which revealed signs of the modern State in formation.
3. According to Carvalho (1978), the
Portuguese Enlightenment differs from the pattern found in other European nations
(France, England, Germany), having its own peculiarities. Nevertheless, and
even recognizing the peculiarities in each nation, it was always a pedagogical
program; a critical attitude concerned with social problems and with intentions
of reformulating the institutions and the culture of the social sphere. 4. Luís Antonio Verney (1713-1792)
was born in Lisbon into a French family which, despite its good financial situation,
lacked social status because of its foreign origin. He is regarded as the most
important propagator of Enlightenment ideals in Portuguese culture.5. António Nunes Ribeiro Sanches
(1699-1782) was born in the city of Pernamacor, and belonged to a family of
New Christians. He studied at the Guard in Coimbra and in Salamanca, graduating
in Medicine. He as also a writer; his most famous piece was the 'Cartas sobre
a educação da mocidade' [Letters on the education of the
youth].